


While You Were Sleeping

by veridium_bye



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Fluff, Intimacy, Sleeping Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 06:50:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16487804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veridium_bye/pseuds/veridium_bye
Summary: Stolen Moment in the Night Between Members of the Inquisition. Warning: some grad A, teeth-burning sweet fluff.





	While You Were Sleeping

There had never been a more comfortable rest than the way it felt to lay with her back against Olivia’s waist and chest, her thighs snuggly fit around her. The way it calmed her heart and made her feel untouchable when she thought it long impossible for her to feel such a way. The way she could just close her eyes and listen to Olivia’s methodical humming in her throat as she perused a textbook in one hand and rested the other on her lover’s shoulder.

They hadn’t yet stripped down out of their resting clothes -- but the fabric and the warmth may as well have been skin-on-skin with the way they had melted into one another.

As the Seeker had began to doze off, images that awaited her in her dreams began to take shape. It was not a good dream -- the first sight was of redness, of blood seeping from bodies never to gain the vitality of it again. Then, the clashing metal of bodies and weapons. At last it was audible: screaming, a roaring war cry. The sharpness of it jolted her awake.

She inhaled sharply, looking up at the ceiling as one of her legs jerked up into the air.

The next sensation, though, was the feeling of Olivia’s resting hand sliding to the middle of Cassandra’s chest, pressing down gently.

“Steady, my Love,” she said softly, “‘tis a dream.”

Cassandra collapsed back into her hold without much argument. Rubbing her eyes and forehead roughly, she let a groan escape her throat. “Does that fact make it any easier?”

Olivia closed her book and set it on the pillow beside her. Carefully, she put her lips to the side of her head, kissing her head of bristled black hair. “No, I am afraid not.”

“I understand more by the day why you elect not to sleep most nights,” Cassandra sighed, tilting her head back more against her lover’s shoulder. “I fear it is an eventuality all of us must face.”

Olivia reached a hand down and intertwined its fingers with Cassandra’s without a word, a soft and sympathetic grin across her face. Indeed, most nights she felt as if she were a ghost lingering in spaces she was not supposed to be -- everyone else rests, sleeps, and recuperates like they should, but she had long since given up on believing in sleep as a sanctuary of the mind and soul. She had tried to study, to understand why her dreaming was so terrifying and violent. She could only assume that her entanglement with the Fade had co-opted and capitalized off of her internalized trauma, and she had yet to find a solution for its mania.

Still, watching people she cared about be robbed of rest affected her compassion.

“You owe it to yourself to rest.”

Cassandra sighed again, her arms resting looped around Olivia’s thighs and knees. “I cannot get the image of Lord Seeker Lucius’s detestable face out of my head. It has been a month, and I can still feel my blood seethe at the memory of his voice.”

Olivia pursed her lips, feeling sorry for her as she was still tormented by the conflict in Caer Oswin. At the time, they were still just friends with a penchant for sleeping together or partaking in certain exchanges of affection, but even then Olivia could tell the ordeal had worn on Cassandra’s fortitude. It was difficult not to develop rancor and spite from such things. Cassandra was encouraged by those closest to her not to lose hope on the Seekers, and to commit to their recovery. Only Olivia got to see just how conflicted Cassandra was about such a suggestion, whilst she showed the world a most unequivocal decisiveness.

“When we apprentices were first starting to harness our abilities, we were told that a good trick was to imagine sights that evoke certain emotions from our subconsciousness. Dreaming and encountering the Fade can be a frightening experience, but if we can ground our emotions, it helps us maintain some semblance of control.”

Cassandra grasped her lover’s thigh a bit tighter as she tilted her chin up. “What did you envision, then?”

Olivia smirked, filing some of her tousled bed hair behind her ear. “I thought of the way the gardens back home are in spring time. The budding roses and the hummingbirds playing in the air. It was one of the good parts of home, and all-too-fleeting. Father, laughing as he cleaned his hunting weapons in the courtyard after a long winter.”

Cassandra grinned, gazing off towards the wall directly across from them. Imagining the way Olivia looked when she was younger, though encapsulated in the duties of a daughter and heir. Her untouched face and frizzy, youthful hair framing her face. It made her wonder.

“Do you still think of it now when you are feeling overwhelmed?”

“Ha! No, certainly not,” Olivia smiled. “I would sooner prick my finger and stick it in lemon juice.”

“Why the change of heart? Does it not make you happy to recall such times?” Cassandra furrowed a brow as she felt the stifled laughter in Olivia’s chest.

“Because, Cassandra. The Fade is manipulative of good things. It learns from our experiences and our exposures. After time, you must find new joys and new sources to keep one step ahead of its grasp.”

Cassandra scoffed a bit. “How is it you have the energies and willpower to fend off such complexities? I find the existence of being a human singularly exhausting.”

“Good thing you were not imbued with magic, then. You would lose that sterling, cheerful disposition of yours,” Olivia smiled as she teased, her hand running through Cassandra’s hair playfully. Feeling spurred, Cassandra tilted her head sharply and gazed up at her with a discerning look.

“Then what is it you envision now, if you are so masterful and essentially gifted beyond the understanding of us who are not so graciously inclined?”

Olivia raised a brow, eyeing her back in return. Her lightheartedness in the face of Cassandra’s impatience always prevailed.

“For your information, Seeker, I imagine you.”

At her admonition, Cassandra’s stern gaze softened and melted as if it were honey poured into a cup of hot tea. She blinked then, feeling Olivia’s hand in hers tighten its grip.

“Oh,” she said simply, feeling like she had jumped to conclusions yet again in a delicate situation.

Olivia chuckled and shook her head. “You, among many things. The girls out in a field somewhere safe, happy, laughing even. Theia before the role of Inquisitor hardened her soul, Naomi when she felt she had a purpose. Veronica, before she allowed herself to become men’s nightmares.”

Olivia took a breath, her gaze drifting off into space as she envisioned a reality where being on the road with her friends did not mean being constantly chased by death. A life where adventure was not sordid.

“But then, I think of you. I think of all the memories I have of you that are not marred in sadness or uncertainty. But, I cannot think of anything too euphoric, or else it becomes harder to control. Things that are blissful, and not excitable.”

Cassandra chuckled, the breathiness of her tone alluding to her sleepiness. But this conversation had become far too interesting to simply go back into slumber’s hold. Interesting and lovely. As she contemplated all the possibilities of good memories they had formed together up until that point, she found the effect Olivia alluded to was potent: her heartbeat started to calm, and her tensed muscles began to unhinge. All the while, the sensation of Olivia lightly playing with her hair proved influential as well.

Her eyes began to narrow, anticipating the restful darkness.

“I wish you were not so tormented by the effects of your abilities,” Cassandra said, her candor bleeding through the more tired she felt.

In return, Olivia tilted her head, a crooked grin on her lips. “‘What would you do, then, my Love? Battle my Mage’s soul with sword and shield until it relented in giving me a restful night of sleep?”

“If you would be amiable to it, I could certainly make arrangements,” Cassandra smirked, leaning her head onto one side to rest her cheek on Olivia’s shoulder.

Olivia anchored the side of her chin against Cassandra’s head, eyes pondering thoughts and consequences of the love she had found in this life. It was a most sickly sweet thing to have in such uncertain times, and she had never known something so shocking in its purity. For years, she believed she had disproven the veneer of authentic goodness in the world, but every day with Cassandra was giving new meaning to the truth of good and bad that she used to take for granted.

She reached and took hold of Cassandra’s hand that had cusped her knee, and gently placed it to her lips. Kissing her coarse, calloused knuckles, she only felt the softening capacity for devotion in it.

Feeling her lips, Cassandra then extended their feel and took hold of Olivia’s cheek, letting it linger there.

“It is alright, Cassandra. I quite like this duty of mine, keeping watch over the Seeker of the Inquisition whilst she sleeps,” Olivia cooed, placing her hand to the back of her lover’s, encasing it between her palm and her face.

Cassandra’s breathing had quieted into a rhythmic pace, but she managed to maintain coherence just long enough.

“If anyone is to be burdened with a task, I am fortunate that the Maker imparted it on you.”

The Seeker then relaxed her arm that had been reaching to Olivia’s face, letting it rest in its position on her chest and shoulder whilst Olivia’s fingers tangled with hers. Olivia grinned broadly, not wishing to disturb the fragile rest that Cassandra had managed to be seduced by once more. She gazed at the partially lit contours of her jaw line, the side of her face sloping like the dimensions of a carved gemstone. Her skin glowed in the candlelight like nothing else.

As she admired her, Olivia noticed the winding chain of her necklace, peeking out Cassandra’s tunic shirt collar. She felt her face become slightly warm -- it never got old to be faced with the fact that Cassandra’s loyalty was so definite.

She stole one last soft kiss to the side of her head. “Rest well, my warrior woman,” she whispered with a grin, before reaching and taking hold of her book once more. Finding the page she had left off on, she returned to her most dedicated vigil.


End file.
